Gaining momentum

13 Jul, 2014        Author: administrator

Once again, apologies to readers of this blog for the long pauses between posts. As many of you will agree, the spring of 2014 was exceptionally lovely in its slow unfolding. Throughout this unfolding, activities related to the restoration gained momentum. Major thrusts included Atlantic white cedar propagation, submission of permit narratives, outreach through public meetings, research visioning and fundraising have all focused on insuring that we are well positioned to realize start date of March 2015 for major restoration actions on site.

In addition to the gaggle of agency and academic partners, several volunteers have become "regulars" at Tidmarsh, and provide critical on-going support for our activities. Among these, Frank Werny has organized his own weekly group to pull Oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus). Ricard Torres-MateLuna, Benjamí Torres-Hatch, Claire Easterbrook, Paul and Linda Williams have helped the Salicicola team and myself transplant and water our 5000+ Atlantic White cedar seedlings. Once again, Mark Faherty has led our spring nesting bird counts, an early morning activity that on June 3 allowed us to observe this Red-shouldered hawk. Thank you all!

Red-shouldered hawk; Photo: MFaherty

As I have previously mentioned, we are so lucky to have Alex Hackman from the Massachusetts Division of Ecological Restoration as our project manager; he continues to provide exceptional leadership on many fronts. On May 20th over 75 members of the community congregated at the John Alden Club to listen to Alex who presented the restoration design rational and Bob Wilber who spoke to MassAudubon's’ interest in acquiring the property as a nature sanctuary. The conversation that followed was generally positive, although some neighbors raised concerns about potential flooding of basements on Bartlett road. On this point,, Alex underscored the idea that this wetland project will allow ground water to flow away from these habitations.. Many thanks to David Balutis for getting the word out and for keeping the bar open throughout the evening.

On July 1, Alex was back in front of Plymouth’s Conservation Commission to present our request an Order of Conditions for the Restoration. Approximately 20 community members attended, some of who raised questions similar to the ones raised at the John Alden club meeting, namely the impact of setting ground water levels at Tidmarsh on houses along Bartlett Road, and the potential for increased truck traffic and noise on Bartlett Road. David Gould, Director of the Department of Marine and Environmental Affairs spoke to the high caliber of the restoration team. After taking these questions from the public, the Commission voted unanimously to approve the Order of Conditions. All required permit applications have now been filed.

The season has been prime time for many of the Living Observatory research teams. The Scientific American cover story this month was written by Gershon Dublon and Joe Paradiso. The article provides an insightful introduction to the low-powered sensor network that is being deployed across Tidmarsh by theResponsive Environments Group at the MIT Media Lab. The sensor nodes, designed by Brian Mayton, measure and transmit many parameters of ecological change in real time, and sets the stage for a new era of ecological awareness and learning. Currently, a Living Observatory intern, Henry Eshbaugh, is working with the MIT team to assemble more boxes. Check out the landscape in your Chrome browser (http://livingobservatory.org). You will first need to download the unity game engine.

In June, Public Lab held their North East Tool Focused Barnraising at Tidmarsh; this event allowed me to explore with Chris Fastie of Vermont Public Lab how to best approach the kite-mapping of Tidmarsh to create a vegetation record. As the barnstorming group left, Kate Ballantine arrived with students for a week-long deep-dive into a study that will compare microbial activity as a function of landscape health and the carbon story at Tidmarsh and 3 reference sites. Following a tour of Tidmarsh and Eel River with Alex Hackman, Kate and students Erin and Brittany settled in to do some sampling.

In mid-June and again on July 1, researchers met on site to share perspectives, learn from each other, and articulate a common research vision. An important impetus for these meetings is to collaboratively develop a monitoring and evaluation plan for the restoration. Alan Christian and Sara Grady have jumped in to help lead our diverse research teams through a structured process. This plan will serve to guide our monitoring work plan going forward; in addition, it will suggest learning frameworks that inform the visitor experience, and will pave the way for a restoration cookbook that we hope will be helpful to other cranberry bog restoration efforts in Massachusetts.

2014 Research Summit

30 Mar, 2014        Author: administrator

Our 2nd Annual Tidmarsh Farms - Living Observatory Research Summit was held at the MIT Media Lab on February 28th. The lively day long event allowed 45 participants to share views and contribute to our focus topic: "What Stories will the Landscape Tell? Tools to Document and Experience a Changing Landscape".  In the morning session, we reviewed changes we anticipate, questions that seem promising to explore, and a low-power sensor network that will allow us to monitor changes that can help answer these questions.  The afternoon session focused on how the data may be revealed in the visitor experience.

Alex Hackmen of DER kicked off the morning session off with an update on the design (see our March 17 post). Alex characterized the overall goals for the restoration allow us to modify the landscape that has been shaped "in service to a highly managed monoculture [cranberries]" into "an evolving mosaic of habitats "in service to critters".

Danielle Hare, Masters student in the Department of Geosciences at U Mass -Amherst, presented some of her findings on the groundwater-peat interface across the formerly farmed landscape. Using results from  Differential Temporal Sensing and Infra-Red imaging, Danielle hypothesized a relationship between slope in the peat bowls and groundwater upwellings.  This work has played an important role in the design of the proposed new stream channel.

Brian Mayton, a PhD student in M.I.T.'s Responsive Environment Group, closed the morning session describing the low-power sensor network that he has been designing.  In this architecture, multiple low power sensor nodes push temperature, humidity, light, barometric pressure and other data to servers located at MIT at regular intervals. The nodes can be augmented with additional sensors as required for a particular exploration of microclimates or carbon sequestration.  The presentation challenged Summit participants to think not only about the questions they would like to ask, but also how to space the nodes effectively, and what other sensors should be designed.

In the break out sessions that followed, participants considered 5 habitat types that exist or will evolve following the restoration.   Session leaders together with self chosen participants roamed the lab to find a comfortable spot (shown in images below).  After the earlier presentations, the conversations were animated, interactive and allowed a wealth of ideas to bubble up.

Left: setting for Red Maple Swamp  discussion; leader: Alex Hackman; respondent: Danielle Hare

Right: Transitional Grassland and Forrest discussion: leaders Jeff Collins, Ma Audubon,  and Gershon Dublon; respondent: Casey Shetterly

Above: Stream Channel discussion: leader: Eric Hutchins; respondent: Sean McCanty (above)

Bog Surface and Atlantic White cedar Swamp - Nick Nelson; respondent: Brian Mayton (no image)

Above: Freshwater Marsh: Kate Ballantine and Franz Ingelfinger  respondent: Edgar Franck

David Boutt lead the wrap up discussion in which each group reported back. While more discussions are needed to define how best to follow the long term restoration impact, a few core concepts surfaced including: what the wetting up of the marsh will do to the different hydrologic flow paths that exist today; and as the water spreads out, how we will we measure the increased microbial interaction.

During the lunch break everyone was encouraged to review posters that Danielle Hare, Edgar Frank, Sean McCanty and Ben Eck had develop for the event.  These have been archived along with the formal presentations.

Following lunch, Bob Wilbur, Director of Land Conservation at Mass Audubon (above),  provided a short introduction to the organization, its goals, and its interest in Tidmarsh Farms as a future Mass Audubon Sanctuary.

The afternoon began with presentations suggest different design approaches that can be incorporated in the visitor experience.  Judy Perry demonstrated a narrative interactive game platform, Tale Blazer, developed by M.I.T.'s  Education Arcade. The platform allows one to construct interactive role playing games around specific learning objectives.  Mass Audubon's education team is already developing a game for their Drumlin Farms Sanctuary. Catherine d'Ignazio presented Babbling Brook, an interactive installation that morphs real time sensor data about the rivers stage and flow into a computer generated speech. Emanating from a flower sculpture, the quirky, fun, funny persona speaks to no one in particular but draws the attention of passers-by's to the state of the brook.  Finally, Gershon Dublon, another PhD candidate in the Responsive Environments Group at the Media Lab, shared his thinking about future augmented experiences in which a system would respond to the state of the visitor's attention.  The goal of this work is to display sensor data as an extension of ourselves, such that we are not commanding it, but rather it is bringing us an experience in the "right" moment.

Judy Perry and Josh Sheldon (left)   Catherine D'Ignazio (right)

Gershon Dublon presents "Being There" (below)

In the break out sessions that followed, participants focused on: Funding for Science Research, the Music of Tidmarsh, or Community Building. The community building session was led by Jeffery Warren and Don Blair of Public Lab who have grown an amazing organization whose goal is to bring together technologists and activists.  The idea is to develop affordable tools that can be used on the ground by activists.  Participants in this session articulated different groups who share an interest in realizing our vision for a future nature sanctuary and  Living Observatory. These groups include direct abutters, the local community of Manomet and Plymouth, visitors to Manomet and Plymouth, researchers who are interested in assessing the impact of the restoration.  How do we learn on and with a changing landscape?  What should be our next steps in engaging the local community? How do we put forward out goals in a way that allows us to identify and grow a participatory community?

Kris Scopinich, Education Director at Mass Audubon's Drumlin Farms Wildlife Sanctuary, led an animated wrap up discussion. Each topic generated lively discussion.  Kris articulated the excitement of the "pro-active" quality that allows us to layer restoration ecology, education, visitor experience, with technology to help us discover, engage with the community and bring intention to our messaging about climate change.

Charis Durrance and Christina Hatch discuss tree sensors; Kris Scopinich frames a point.

The Summit ended with a request to fill in a questionaire, a tour of the Media Lab for participants and a cool brew at Meadhall.

We end this post with a sincere thanks  to all who participated. This Summit became a real working session, allowing us to share the research that has been accomplished to date and to think together about the future of how to grow the Living Observatory.  Well done all!

A special thanks to Hyun Yeul Lee for the snazzy red tee-shirt and to Anthony Reiber for an Atlantic White Cedar tree.

The Restoration Design advances to Permitting

17 Mar, 2014        Author: administrator

Alex Hackman, Restoration Specialist at MA Fish and Game's Division of Ecological Restoration, serves as Project Manager for the Tidmarsh Farms Restoration effort. In this critical leadership role, Alex shapes the assessment and design phase, coordinates with our 22 partnering organizations and applies for necessary funding to make the project happen. Throughout design process, Alex's commitment to "process-based restoration" and his extensive on the ground experience, including on the Eel River project, allows him to set a high standard for assessment and decision making. Very simply, this project could not happen without him!

As we apply for permitting, Alex is increasingly called on to present to agencies, funders and researchers. On February 25th, Alex gave an informational presentation to Plymouth’s Conservation Commission. Three days later, on February 28th, he provided an overview of the project to researchers who had gathered for the 2014 Living Observatory Research Summit. In this post, I draw on these recent presentations to provide an overview of the near-final design and the expected schedule for implementation.

Alex begins most presentations by situating Tidmarsh Farms geographically and historically. Where does all the water come from? What do old maps tell us about how the water was manipulated first for light manufacturing and later for farming?

On this map, a blue outline indicates the limits of the small (5.4 square mile) coastal watershed; the pink shows the extent of Tidmarsh Farms (577 acres); and the green defines the 250 acre restoration area. The restoration site is a valley that collects water from Pine Hills and Long Island Pond to the West, from Fresh Pond to the East, and from two headwater areas with in the restoration envelop: the former Beaver Dam Pond and "The Arm". All this water flows northward through a red maple swamp before it crosses 3A, where it continues onwards through Bartlett Pond, to the ocean at White Horse Beach.

What is the restoration area like today? Two images tell the story. In 2011, we drained the 35 acre reservoir in the Southern portion of the restoration site. Despite its man-made origins, this water body carried the name Beaver Dam Pond. Today, this area supports a beautiful naturalized marsh. Just to the north, an earthen dam with concrete spillways still separates this naturalized marsh from the former cranberry bogs. Across this 130 acre expanse, water is channelized and stagnant, the bog surface flat and featureless.

1830

This was not always the case. A map from 1830 shows that at that time much of the property was forested. When we were digging test pits, we discovered wood stumps under the bog surface. The 1830's map also provides the tell-tale evidence of a dam at 3A. This dam backed up water into what 70 years later would become the central area of the cranberry bog complex. Alex encourages us to remember the a distinctive kidney bean shape of the pond as seen in this map.

GPR Image; LIDAR

In 2012, a team from the GeoSciences Department at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, used Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to image the peat kettles below the surface of the bogs. The location of the peat corresponds to the lowest areas of the site. The most recent LIDAR survey clearly shows the lowest depressions across the landscape, and echoes the kidney bean shape of the left by the earlier pond as seen on the 1830 map.

Learning what the site looked like in the past is critical to thinking about how to design for the future. Here are our goals:

• To encourage the development of a self-sustaining, complex, productive and dynamic (resilient) systems of high-quality streams and native wetlands.
• To establish a refuge for diverse native plant and animal communities, including a restored herring run.
• To increase the connection between people and the land by providing an evolving, beautiful naturalized area for public use and enjoyment, engaging people in discovery, and communicating our discoveries in meaningful ways.

With these goals and knowledge of the site, Alex lays out the 4 elements of our approach beginning with a guiding theory, "Process-based restoration". Process-based restoration focuses on the restoration of underlying ecological processes. In the case of Tidmarsh, we want to restore the natural movement of water across the landscape. The restoration of this physical process will have a cascading impact on other physical processes such as the movement of sediment, organic matter, nutrients and organisms. Theoretically, this generative network of processes will bring about the formation of an adaptive system of living and non-living elements, a complex eco-system that supports resilience or the ability of the landscape to adjust itself over time with changing underlying conditions.

In order to restore the natural movement of water across the site, we need to identify those conditions that limit how the water moves across the site today. In the assessment phase, we identified 3 main limiting factors or stressors: a sand layer that separates the vegetative surface from the ground water; a physical simplification of water passages; and the existence of dams and barriers.

Physical simplification; Physical barriers (Credit: A Hackman)

The straightened channels and dams were built when the cranberry bog was constructed; in farming, sand is incrementally added every three years. The sand buries leaf drop and allows new roots to grow from the cranberry vine. In the photo to the left, Nick Nelson stands in a test pit which clearly shows the 18” to 2 foot layer of alternating sand and leaf drop that exists across the surface of the cranberry cells today. This 18" to 2' layering of sand separates the ground water from the vegetative surface of the landscape causing it to become drier than it would naturally be.

In order to put the landscape on a healing trajectory, we need to plan coordinated actions that would remove the stress caused these limiting factors. In this effort, we were able to learn from Eel River, a smaller site in an adjacent watershed where a similar restoration design was completed in 2010.

Eel River 2009; Eel River 2013 (Credit: A Hackman)

The actions taken at Eel River (above in construction in 2009, and in 2014) will be repeated at Tidmarsh where large equipment will be on the ground beginning in 2015.

While it is not economically feasible to remove the sand from the entire site, the groundwater needs to be elevated to insure the wetlands are wet. This will be accomplished by filling the edge ditches and by building underground riffles in particular locations. We will address the physical simplification of water movement by removing or replacing all dams and culverts. At the northern end of the former cranberry bogs, just as the site transitions to the Red Maple Swamp, we will move the river channel back into the relic channel. A bridge will be built here to connect the Eastern and Western portions of the site. A sinuous channel will be constructed through much of the former cranberry bogs. In discussing this step, Alex points out that digging a new channel is not a preferred solution in a process-based restoration, however it is required in cases where the gradient is so minimal that it would take many decades for a natural channel to develop on its own. As the channel is built, the vegetative surface of the former bogs will be roughened and approximately 3,000 pieces of large wood will be added to the surface. The wood helps roughen the surface, provides some shade as well as complex habitat in the early stages of the restoration. These actions help to activate the native seed bank. We anticipate that this seed bank will rapidly vegetate the bog surfaces. In the final phase (2016), we will be adding some young plants including 8,000+ Atlantic White Cedar. These plants will help jumpstart the natural communities.

The final step in this restoration will be to walk away and leave natural processes to heal the land over time. After the construction equipment leaves and the plants have been put in the ground, we leave the future to "Mother Nature, Father Time".

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